Second Great War (Sith'ari/Specops)
The Second Great War, or GW2, was a conflict spanning the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy involving most of Arm's nations, the majority organised into the United Powers alliance, consisting of the United Nations Space Command, the Sangheili Armed Forces, the Brotherhood of Ruskt, the True Covenant and after 2568, the Unggoy Star Empire, fighting against the Governors of Contrition-controlled New Covenant. The Yanme'e Hives were involved in the conflict against the Governors from the 2560s, but did not formally ally with the United Powers until 2570. For much of the conflict, the Sangheili Armed Forces regarded it as a civil war within the wider Sangheili species The conflict is generally held to have begun on March 3rd 2565, with the invasion of UNSC territory by the New Covenant and the subsequent declaration of war on the Governors by the Sangheili Armed Forces the next day. However, the civil war between the True Covenant and the New Covenant had being going on for nearly a year beforehand, with the declaration of war resulting in the Prophet-controlled True Covenant unexpectedly allying with the UNSC and Sangheili. The Brotherhood of Ruskt and Unggoy Star Empire were initially not involved in the conflict in a military sense but instead provided intelligence and material support respectively. After the Battle of Perharb in December 2568, the Unggoy declared war on the New Covenant, and the Brotherhood of Ruskt led by Cheiftan Erebus formed a breakaway faction and joined the United Powers in January 2566 after the Governors uncovered evidence of their covert intelligence activities and ordered their extermination. In 2572, the war ended with the victory of the United Powers after the surrender of New Covenant forces after the Battle of Installation 06. The result was the creation of the UNSC and Unggoy Star Empire as superpowers and the beginnings of mutual distrust between them, and the Balkanization of the Covenant in the hope that this would prevent it from ever becoming strong enough to fight a war again. Unfortunately, these smaller states have been seen to be deliberately hostile or non-cooperative with each other. The small-state nationalism spawned by the war, the repercussions of Covenant's defeat, and the distrust between the UNSC and Unggoy has resulted in a Cold War between two major power blocs, each dominated by the UNSC and the Unggoy. The long term effects of this confrontation remain unclear. History Prelude to War (2562-2565) The beginnings of the Second Great War reach back to the conclusion of the First Great War and the War of Vengeance. During the Great Schism, what was left of the Covenant was held together only loosely out of the sheer skill of the Prophet of Truth. His political expertise, adept application of manipulation, and his ability to inspire zealotry in his commanders allowed the Covenant to survive longer than it otherwise would have - long enough for his own purposes, at any rate. His death at Installation 00 left the Covenant without a guiding force, and it began to fracture. Into that breach stepped the Prophet of Objection. Though certainly no Truth, he limited the damage that was being done, cobbling together a remnant force that could at least hold its own against the various other rival factions, reinstating the rule of the Prophets with the creation of the New Covenant. Though wary of the Prophets after the disaster at Earth and the Ark, numerous Jiralhanae remained loyal, pledging their allegiance to the Prophets and the Great Journey. The same cannot be said of other races - while the Huragok have never particularly cared who they worked for in the past, they began to defect en masse to the UNSC and Sangheili, fleeing the New Covenant in droves. Unable to stop so many refugees, Objection was forced to institute martial law over Huragok colonies, and patrols of Unggoy and Kig-yar kept more of the valuable creatures from escaping. Objection at least stopped the Jiralhanae practice of using the Huragok as suicide bombers, easing some fears, and improved relations between the Huragok work teams and the San'Shyuum handlers, once again restricting the creatures to the service of the Prophets. Likewise, the Unggoy and Kig-yar fractured again, though for different reasons. Many Unggoy still believed in the Prophets and the Great Journey, but others were not so confident. Loathe to recognise the sovereignty of the San'Shyuum and return to the brutal yoke of the New Covenant, many Unggoy hijacked merchant traders, setting up small colonies on or near methane-rich planets beyond the reach of New Covenant law. Though they risked raids by roving pirates and warlords, the gain of their independence seemed an acceptable trade. This resulted in the creation of the Unggoy Star Empire, a state that was nearly destroyed as soon as it was created, only to be pulled back from the brink by the UNSC. Likewise, many of the Kig-yar saw the opportunity for further profit outside of the New Covenant - some offered their services to other factions, such as the Blood Covenant, while still more set themselves up as private enterprises, raiding merchant ships and small colonies opportunistically. Even the Lekgolo had their misgivings, and with Te in Sangheili-controlled territory, many chose to leave the New Covenant and ally themselves with their old commanders. The only race to remain totally and unswervingly loyal was the Yanme'e, and their Queens were rewarded by a seat amongst the High Council, alongside the San'Shyuum and Jiralhanae. Though limited in numbers and abilities, the sudden rise to power of the Yanme'e changed many of the political dynamics of the New Covenant, and their participation in the military was expanded dramatically. Objection consolidated what little power he had with what little resources he had available. At first, less than a dozen worlds remained loyal to the New Covenant, with a fleet of less than a hundred. Choosing his military commanders carefully, preferring skill over zeal, he crafted the New Covenant military into a finely honed weapon, using it to make conquest after conquest, shattering and reabsorbing more than a dozen breakaway factions. Executions for treason became a commonplace occurance, with the leaders and warlords shown little mercy. Their forces, on the other hand, were shown nothing but forgiveness, and most readily joined the New Covenant to start again as soldiers in its military, eager to show their loyalty for the new regime. As the influence of the New Covenant grew to encompass system after system, Objection realised that he would have to accept help on a more even capacity, and set his political machinery in motion to handpick exactly who he wanted to serve alongside him as Hierarchs - the Prophet of Protestation and the Prophet of Devotion. Expanding rapidly, the New Covenant soon came into conflict with some of the more established former Covenant factions - dissatisfied with Prophet rule, many Jiralhanae rallied around the Blood Covenant under the banner of Master Chieftain Hephaestus. The details of the New Covenant-Blood Covenant War are few and far between. The New Covenant would not come into contact with the Sangheili Armed Forces or UNSC until 2561 in Operation: LAMENTATION, where elements of all three factions attacked the last major Blood Covenant stronghold at Expansive Judgement, and New Covenant diplomats have been loathe to come into contact with their human or Sangheili counterparts, but some things have been gleaned from recovered information from Kig-Yar pirates and privateers, captured Blood Covenant files, and a few rogue Unggoy traders - prior to the Battle of Unmoving Virtue, New Covenant diplomats had arrived to negotiate a cessation of hostilities, and investigate the possibility of an alliance against the Sangheili. These diplomats were greeted, and the unsuspecting politicians welcomed - and then slaughtered down to the last warrior. The mutilated and desecrated corpses of the two Prophet diplomats were sent on an automated shuttle into New Covenant space as the Blood Covenant reply - the rest of the party were consumed as a victory feast. The death of Hephaestus in the subsequent Operation: TACK HAMMER did nothing to quell the New Covenant's outrage, and the continued practice of Blood Covenant-sponsored Kig-Yar privateers on vital shipping finally brought the still wounded New Covenant into the fray. For the duration of the War of Vengeance, the Blood Covenant fought a war on two fronts - on one side, the SAF and UNSC allied forces destroyed shipyards, isolated colonies, and assassinated leaders; on the other side, the New Covenant glassed world after world, pushing inexorably but steadily towards the Noumenon of Blood Covenant space. When they finally reached Expansive Judgement, the New Covenant force unintentionally found itself in the middle of a battle already raging between a small Sangheili fleet and the entire Blood Covenant Navy. The demonstration of Sangheili battle tactics, and the improved nature of UNSC warship construction, forced the New Covenant to agree to a temporary ceasefire negotiated between Fleet Master Erebus and Supreme Commander Zuro Dun 'Xoramee - after the confusion was sorted out, the New Covenant proceded to wipe out the last Blood Covenant defences and glass the planet, destroying all ships attempting to flee the system, leaving no survivors. The creation of the Unggoy Star Empire in 2555 saw the beginnings of a power that within ten years would rise to challenge the UNSC, SAF, and even the New Covenant for supremacy in the Orion Arm. Recognising that certain factions within the New Covenant would want to reclaim their former slave workforce, the Unggoy rapidly built up their Armed Forces, supported by grants and trade from the UNSC (Smithson's government could not see what the Unggoy were worried about, convinced of the sanctity the Unmoving Virute Non-Agression Pact, and only desired to open up a new trading market in the USE). With a large, ever-expanding population that was willing to work, the Empire rapidly became a significant economic power, opening up trading alliance with the UNSC and the Prophet of Objection's regime in the New Covenant which was cut off after the coup by the Governors of Contrition. Due to the SAF embargo on Unggoy goods, however, the Unggoy were denied the trade that would have given them the funds to build up their fleet to wartime levels before the outbreak of the war. The New Covenant's victory at Expansive Judgement was a crippling blow for the government of Pierre Plantard, then-Secretary-General of the UEG. Incensed that they had been denied the final, killing blow to the Blood Covenant, and this had actually led to a temporary peace with a species that had declared humanity a heretical race, the furious human population would force Plantard's Conservative Party out of office in the 2562 general election in favour of Jerome Smithson of the Liberal Party, who's first action was a massive military budget cut, diverting the funds to recolonisation and reconstruction efforts, despite ONI's dire warnings of potential threats emerging among the Covenant remnant factions. Initially, this was a popular and indeed neccessary move - the loss of Reach and devastation of Earth left the UNSC in a precarious position, on the verge of economic collapse and heavily dependent on the few remaining colonies for its survival. Over time, however, Smithson's policies would become increasing far-left, questioned even by members of his own party, to the detriment of humanity's attempt at restoring itself - he significantly expanded oversight of surviving colonial territories, an extremely unpopular move by any standards, one that echoed the discontent of the much earlier Insurrectionists against the Colonial Authority, and also expanded government control over assets that had traditionally been the purview of the private sector. Some, such as health care, would improve with the removal of financially bloated and uncaring corporations from the equation, but most, such as the extensive economic oversight and regulation put in place, would leave the UNSC economically stunted. The reduction of the UNSCDF's military capabilities, leaving it stretched across human frontier space, also left Humanity particularly vulnerable, no matter how much confidence officials expressed at the adherence to treaties signed, and would prove nearly fatal when the war broke out in 2565. Though there were factions within the New Covenant that longed to wipe out the Sangheili, and others that still insisted that humanity was an abomination against the Gods, Objection and most of the High Council realised that they still lacked the military strength to wage a conclusive war against either power, nevermind a strongly united combined effort. To pacify the council, Objection declared that the operation of slipspace operable ships was to be restricted to the New Covenant Navy - technically this statute had been in existence since the incorporation of the Kig-Yar into the Covenant, but Objections restatement of it was tantamount to a declaration of war against the hundreds of Kig-Yar pirate factions that still preyed on it internally. For the next three years, the New Covenant Navy busied itself hunting down and destroying piracy, having the triple advantage of securing the New Covenant's shipping, occupying the military forces, and honing their space combat skills. Anticipating a massive conflict against the Sangheili, either defensive or offensive, Objection reached out to the Governors of Contrition, a breakaway Sangheili sect that still held true to the Covenant's beliefs, even if their loyalty to the Prophets was questionable, in an attempt to cultivate a spy network. In hindsight, this may have been Objection's most damning mistake - attempting to bring even a few Sangheili back into the fold of the New Covenant would anger the Jiralhanae, and the Governors themselves would set about plans to take control of the New Covenant, restoring Sangheili dominance, and returning to beginning the Great Journey. Even as Objection readied the New Covenant for war, he made arrangements for peace, signing the Unmoving Virtue Non-Aggression Pact, establishing an embassy on the planet to facilitate limited economic and diplomatic links, even if only to gain a small informational advantage over the Sangheili. The UNSC never traded with the New Covenant, and even kept their involvement to the Sangheili to the barest minimum, and all attempts at setting up a spy network in human space inevitably failed - religious fanatics converted to the Covenant cause, while enthusiastic, were never in any position to be of any use to Objection. A shipping route was set up, with New Covenant and SAF freighters exchanging metals and gases as needed. It is ironic that all of Objections attempts to ready the New Covenant for war only drew it closer to a lasting period of peace, or at least a cease fire. Alas, this period of stability would not last. The Governors of Contrition had planted operatives on Hallowed Sanctum, the new home of the Covenant capital, and with a paltry few shots had assassinated most of the New Covenant High Council and capturing the remaining Prophets in the line of succession. Using the Prophet of Piety as a puppet leader, the Governors declared that the New Covenant would immediately mobilise for war against humanity and the "heretic" Sangheili. Many Jiralhanae responded unquestioningly, springing into action with the haste that is typical of their species - New Covenant warships suddenly turned on Sangheili freighters and escorts. A small number knew that the few remaining Prophets were merely being manipulated by the Governors, and a small battlegroup managed to secure the other two Hierarchs, Protestation and Devotion, speeding them out of New Covenant space to the safety of Victorious Avowal, forming the Noumenon of a "Loyalist" True Covenant faction against the Governors. Realising that elements of the New Covenant remained loyal to the Prophets and opposed them, the Governors moved quickly - launching a fleet to Victorious Avowal in an event known as the Great Upheaval, the battle was long and bloody, but ended with the arrest of the Prophet of Protestation and the escape of the Prophet of Devotion, the capture of the planet, and the deaths of millions of loyalist New Covenant warriors. In an effort to avoid another war, UEG Secretary-General Jerome Smithson agreed to a renewal of the Unmoving Virtue Non-Aggression Pact with the Governors, in exchange for non-interference while the Governors took over the rest of New Covenant space. While this was a popular move, Smithson's assertions of "peace for our time" proved to be false; barely two months would go by before the New Covenant attacked the UNSC. Finally believing that their only chance for survival lay in their former enemies, Devotion took his small battlegroup deep into Sangheili space, alerting them of the actions of the Governors. While the deaths of Prophets and Jiralhanae troubled them little, their declaration of a renewed effort to begin the Great Journey alarmed the Sangheili and UNSC greatly, and quarantine forces aroud Delta Halo and the ruins of Alpha Halo were bolstered immediately, and the UEG belatedly agreed to a return to a war footing. Mere days later, the New Covenant began the Second Great War with the invasion of UNSC territory in Operation Twilight of the Gods. Outbreak of Conflict (March 2565) Despite their zealous hatred of Humanity, the Governors were not blind to the fact that the UNSC had advanced significantly since the end of the First Great War. Rather than wage a second protracted, expensive campaign of genocide against them, therefore, the New Covenant chose to to launch a massive series of simultaneous assaults on the UNSC's most important ship-building and industrial systems, code-named Operation Twilight of the Gods, while at the same time destroying as many ships as possible, with the intent of destroying the UNSC's modern fleet and crippling their ability to replace it. They reasoned that this would force the UNSC to withdraw ships from the pickets around the known Halo rings for home defence while they rebuilt their infrastructure, allowing the New Covenant to use its massive numbers to overwhelm the Delta Halo picket, activate the ring, and begin the "Great Journey". This war plan, however, did depend on Operation Twilight of the Gods being a complete success, a fact that the New Covenant's less-zealous military commanders were not blind to, and doubted the actual feasability of the strategy. Tau Ceti The attacks took place on March 3rd, 2565 over a period of eleven hours. The first attack and opening move of the war took place at Tau Ceti at 0930 hours, Greenwich Mean Time. Though it possessed a shipyard of medium importance, the lack of any civilian population in the Tau Ceti system and cutbacks in naval strength meant that its defences consisted solely of a squadron of Destroyers and a wing of C800 Blackburn Claymore Space Superiority Fighters. Six Covenant Battleships and two Covenant Carriers exited Slipspace on the edge of the system and launched fighters. Due to new Covenant stealth technology, the development of which the UNSC was unaware of, Rear Admiral Hasselberg believed that the carriers were in fact screening battlecruisers, and believed that he would be able to complete a full evacuation of the shipyards, despite extremely heavy losses, if he used his fighters to destroy the battlecruisers, giving his destroyers a shot at the battleships. His entire wing of fighters, however, was completely wiped out when they were attacked by a numerically-superior force of the Covenant's new ''Throne''-class Starfighters, which made use a new tactic to defeat superior UNSC electronic warfare equipment: Three waves of highly-radioactive plasma torpedoes, composed of intensely-radioactive plutonium plasma, were carefully positioned to create a "wall" of radiation that blinded the approaching missiles' and fighters' sensors, shields, and electronic warfare systems, making them unable to see their targets. The Throne fighters were able to close in and destroy the UNSC fighters, with their own losses being less than forty. Hasselberg attempted to get into two-stage MSM range in a suicidal attempt to engage the battleships and buy time for the evacuation, but his force of destroyers was completely destroyed before they could enter range by the New Covenant's until-then unencountered long-range plasma torpedoes. With the evacuation only half-complete, the New Covenant force closed on the shipyards and destroyed them and seventeen out of thirty evacuating transports, killing thirteen thousand civilian workers, before withdrawing, Van Maanen's Star The Van Maanen's Star System was defended by a squadron of Frigates and Destroyers, with the Battlecruiser ''Retribution'' as their flagship. When the considerably larger New Covenant force of twenty warships entered the system, intent on destroying the hafnium asteroid mines, Rear Admiral Nakamura realised he was in no position to fight, and ordered his Frigates and Destroyers to evacuate the mines. As the most powerful ship in the system, Retribution stayed behind to cover the evacuation of civilians while the other UNSC ships in the system escorted the evacuation transports out. Outnumbered twenty to one, she exhausted her entire missile armament before closing to plasma range and engaging with her THUNDERBOLT-10 Nuclear-Propelled Plasma Turrets. She destroyed fifteen Covenant Destroyers and Cruisers before succumbing to Energy Projector fire. By this time, however, the mines had been completely evacuated, and all mined substances had been transported out. The New Covenant force destroyed the mines with plasma torpedo fire before withdrawing. Retribution's selfless action earned the ship the Legion of Honour, the Silver Star, the Navy Cross, the coveted Admiralty Pennant, and the distinction of being the last UNSC ship that could ever be named Retribution, in her honour. Upsilon Andromedae The UNSC force defending the shipyards of the Upsilon Andromedae System consisted of one ''Retribution''-class Battlecruiser, supported by two older ''Marathon''-class Cruisers and a ''Glorious''-class Carrier, as well as a screen of Frigates. The New Covenant force that entered the system consisted of five Battleships, six Battlecruisers, one Carrier, and screen. Unaware of the advantage conferred upon the enemy by the long-range plasma torpedo or the Throne-class Fighters, Rear Admiral Sir Roland Matthews chose to close to maximum two-stage Multi-Stage Missile range and attempt to cause some damage, while sending in his fighters, timed so that both the fighter and capital ship missile salvos would hit at the same time. However, Matthews' Claymore fighters were completely wiped out by the Covenant Throne-class Fighters, and he was forced to open fire with his MSMs at extreme range when the New Covenant force opened fire before he had reached his optimum firing point. The UNSC force succeeded in destroying a Battleship and a Battlecruiser, and severely damaged another Battleship, but was completely wiped out by superior New Covenant fire. Only one Frigate escaped to relay news of the defeat, and the New Covenant force destroyed the shipyards with only about 25% of the civilian workers evacuated, killing 1,750 civilians and destroying the three arsenal ships under construction. Reach The terraforming and resettlement of the Epsilon Eridani System had been one of the key priorities of the Unified Earth Government since the end of the First Great War. The system's shipyards, destroyed in the Battle of Reach, were in the process of being rebuilt, and some were beginning to produce ships again. The loss of the system, and the shipyards, would be a huge blow to the UNSC's morale and construction ability. In addition, a quarter of the UNSC's arsenal ships were deployed in the system, and the Governors seized upon an invasion of Epsilon Eridani as a chance to cripple the UNSC Navy by removing a significant fraction of its modern combat power. The New Covenant assembled for the attack the largest naval force for Operation Twilight of the Gods. Unbeknownest to them, however, the UNSC's fleet at Reach had been reinforced by a large fleet of Sangheili ships four days previously, after the SAF heard of the Governors' coup in the New Covenant. Eighty New Covenant warships exited Slispace on the edge of the system, and deployed Throne-class Starfighters for reconaissance. However, by the time they detected the Sangheili task force, it was far too late for them to withdraw back to the fleet, and they were destroyed by ''Seraph''-class Starfighters. However, with the knowledge that the combined UNSC/Sangheili task force had him marginally outnumbered, Fleet Master Belisarius chose to withdraw rather than risk the New Covenant's most modern units, reasoning that with the forces concentrated at Reach, the UNSC would be stretched thin at the New Covenant's other objectives. Alpha Centauri Rho Coronae Borealis With the exception of Reach, where Fleet Master Belisarius chose to withdraw when confronted with a combined UNSC/SAF defence force, and the Alpha Centauri System where Vice Admiral Annabel Morrigan decisively defeated Imperial Admiral Bano 'Inanraree's Third Fleet of Glorious Retaliation, the New Covenant Navy succeeded in destroying the shipyards and industrial bases of every system they attacked, as well as destroying nearly three hundred UNSC warships. In the UNSC, the loss of the hafnium mines in the Van Maanen's Star System led to an energy crisis that forced the UEG to iniate a power rationing scheme. The staggering defeat led to the resignation of Secretary-General Jerome Smithson, the collapse of his government and the suicide of Joanna Carter, the Secretary of Defence. However, the successful defence of Reach and Alpha Centauri meant that the UNSC had not been completely knocked out of the war, and so the Governors were unable to implement their original war plan. The collapse of the Smithson Government also saw the re-election of Pierre Plantard of the UNSC Conservative Party as Secretary-General, and the entry of the Sangheili Armed Forces into the war as per their treaty obligations with the UNSC. Stalemate / The Strawman War (2565-2567) The Sangheili Campaign Divine Clarity New Basra Sanghelios The tide turns (2567) The Unggoy enter the conflict (January 2567) The Brotherhood switches sides (April 2567) Counterstrike (2568) Operation: LUCY (January 2568) Operation: ALEXANDER (February 2568) Operation: SOLON (March 2568) Operation: ODIN (July 2568) Illuminated Majesty Earth (September 2568) Operation: FRACTAL (2569) Attempts had been made by a number of factions before to discover the secrets held among the small number of Labyrinth worlds found. In 2552, on Minorca and Ares, both the UNSC and Covenant penetrated a small way into the facilities, only to retreat in the face of the Flood. The Acolytes of Devotion had tried to open the Mandorla Labyrinth in 2553, only to be torn apart between Forerunner Sentinels and Flood forces. Even afterwards, during the War of Vengeance, as the Sangheili and UNSC obliterated their fleets and glassed their planets, the Blood Covenant never gave up hope of discovering a Labyrinth world, funding Kig-Yar information networks and deploying excavation and survey teams to worlds across their empire until its collapse. Nevertheless, all of these pale in comparison to the activation of the Noumenon in 2569. Its beginnings are inauspicious enough. Hoping for an advantage against the SAF and UNSC, the Governors of Contrition had revived the Blood Covenant's policy - Kig-Yar informants, formerly part of the UNSC's own espionage network against the Blood Covenant, reported to the Governors about three major battles on worlds built by the "gods" - the aforementioned Minorca, Ares and Mandorla facilities. Though Minorca and Ares had been destroyed during the war, and Mandorla had been removed from this galaxy, the Governors were nevertheless determined to revisit the sites of their holy objects, and deployed battlegroups to the Mu Arae and Alpha Canis Minoris (Procyon) System. Arriving on the scene, the UNSC's 30th Fleet encountered a scene of devastation. The colonial reconstruction force terraforming Arcadia for resettlement had been destroyed, the wreckage littering the orbit of the planet. Governor ground forces were already on the ground, what little of it was habitable, excavating something. ODST and Spartan forces deployed by the UNSC Arthur Wellesley encounteder significant resistance, despite orbital cruiser support, but managed to gain enough intel on the enemy's occupation of the planet to know that they were uncovering a beacon, like that on Harvest that had led the original Covenant to the planet in 2535. Though the first invasion of the planet had led the Covenant to a shield world, they had failed to find the real object they had sought - the second beacon in the chain. As Spartan-II Indigo Team and the 506th ODST Battalion assaulted the dig site, the beacon sent of a massive tachyon burst, crippling the fleets of both sides temporarily. As the ground forces skirmished and the orbital forces tried to recover, a massive object broke away from the crust of the planet, powering through the atmosphere and entering slipspace as soon as it was out of range. Frightened by the sudden turn of events, and intimidated at the sudden activation of a Forerunner relic, the Governors retreated under a hail of UNSC fire. At the same time, a second Governor battlegroup arrived at Mu Arae, though it encountered a much larger force than it had expected. Arriving little under an hour earlier, the Second Fleet of Enlightened Benevolence and the Seventeenth Fleet of Reticent Observation had learnt of the impending attack through a Kig-Yar turncoat, Jezh, and had deployed their fleet to repel the enemy's advance. Alarmed at their sudden appearance, the UNSC forces mobilised, mistaking the SAF ships for Governor forces, until the real threat showed up - four fleets of state-of-the-art New Covenant warships. The defence of Juno, a former moon of the destroyed Ares, went badly for the Sangheili, who lost almost half their ships in the opening minutes of the battle, but was by no means an easy win for the Governors - the experienced SAF Ship Masters knew their ships and their crews, while the Governors made do with subordinates who were barely qualified, and Jiralhanae, who detested following Sangheili orders. During the battle, another Governor fleet arrived, led by the Jiralhanae Fleet Master Erebus - who promptly turned on his hated masters, offering an alliance between the SAF and UNSC and his forces, rallying around the recently deposed Prophet of Devotion. Though suspicious of his traditional enemy, Supreme Commander Zuro Dun 'Xoram, theatre commander for the SAF, agreed and the two forces worked to defend the planet against the attack. Even after this sudden and unexpected alliance, the battle was pitched once again in the New Covenant's favour by the arrival of the Procyon fleet until the arrival of the 30th Fleet, which had quickly collected its ground forces and given chase. Now a battle between two SAF fleets, one breakaway New Covenant fleet, and a UNSC fleet against four New Covenant fleets, the Third Battle of Mu Arae would be one of the most intense, if not largest or longest, space battles of the Second Great War. Ground forces were deployed by both sides to control Juno, and the arrival of fresh UNSC troops allowed the SAF, Jiralhanae and UNSC to retake Hellena Spaceport and assault the Governors' groundside command centre. As Governor forces prepared a retaliatory counter-attack against the spaceport, a second Forerunner object broke free from the moons surface, powering into slipspace immediately this time, devastating both sides. Worse still, its activation was followed by the activation of a Forerunner automated fleet from within the Noumenon of the moon, which quickly set about wiping out the New Covenant ground and orbital forces. Facing an unknown enemy and such unfavourable odds, the New Covenant retreated into slipspace, followed by the unknown Forerunner fleet. In no condition to pursue, the UNSC, SAF and Jiralhanae force chose to let them go before turning to the task of a makeshift alliance. Using the coordinates of the two objects, as well as limited photographic and radiological evidence, ONI would determine that the two objects had been Forerunner warships, on approximately the same scale as the Covenant Keyship, though much more advanced. Why they had been under the surface of planets or planetoids near Labyrinth worlds remained unknown, as did the origin of the Forerunner fleet that had crushed the New Covenant at Mu Arae, but ONI pinpointed the likely location the two objects had jumped to - a star system deep within the Praesepe Star Cluster. Eventually deciding to deploy an expeditionary force, SAF and UNSC command, along with Erebus' fleet, followed the slipstream wake of the Mu Arae object to its location. What met them was a scene of catastrophe. Orbiting above a planet was the wreckage of millions of spacecraft, space habitants, and various other debris; on the planet, cities had been smashed by orbital impact, entire continents glassed; rings around the planet may have once been one or more moons. And all of this was just the damage from the Forerunner-Flood War. The Covenant fleets that had arrived at the planet earlier were not hard to find - of the nearly one hundred ships that had attacked Mu Arae, only three now survived, hoping to escape the notice of the Forerunner Sentinels and ships searching for them. Attracted by the arrival of the newcomers, the New Covenant ships used the chance to jump into the planet's atmosphere, landing above a major artefact. Though the Sentinels threatened to open fire on any Sangheili or Jiralhanae ships, they avoided the human ships - forming up, the UNSC provided a virtual shield to allow their allies' safe passage to the surface, eventually destroying the damaged ships with a THOR barrage - the ships had been abandoned, however, their crews venturing deep into the relic. Following, the Allies quickly discovered that it had been a trap - more ships had survived, hidden inside a massive chamber, spweing ground troops to defend their ground, using the tight corridors to effectively halt the allied offensive. Further THOR barrages seemed to have no effect, and plasma weaponry failed to penetrate the layer of destroyed Forerunner habitat to reach the entrenched New Covenant forces - until the arrival of Sentinel forces, raised by the local monitor, began a counter-attack to retake the chamber. As fighting raged between allied, Sentinel, and Governor forces, all three factions found themselves under attack by Flood, sparking a four-way battle for survival. Reaching the New Covenant cruiser Veneration of Sanctity, the surviving UNSC, Sangheili and Jiralhanae forces were able to destroy the rest of the surviving New Covenant fleet, abandoning them to their fate as they ventured further into the vast catacombs in search of a way out. Eventually, they would discover the reason why the New Covenant had deemed this world so important - it was a superluminal transportation hub world, essentially a vast terminal for faster-than-light ships that had no need of slipspace drives. More importantly, they discovered that this terminal was one of eight around the galaxy, once used by a figure called the Architect for intergalactic transport - he had created the Labyrinths to lead to the Nexus', which would lead to the Noumenon in another galaxy, the final destination of the artefacts. Exactly what lay at the other end of this network still remained unknown, but it was still vital to the war effort - for one thing, the discovery of realspace FTL travel would allow ships to traverse vast distances faster than ever before, or create weapons that could shatter planets with only kinetic force. It was therefore imperative that the New Covenant be denied this. In orbit, another New Covenant fleet, three hundred ships strong, arrived out of slipspace, managing to penetrate the scattered automated defences of the Nexus. Overtaking the captured allied ship, this fleet activated the FTL acclerator, propelled at superluminal speeds towards a point far beyond the galaxy. The debate over whether to follow this fleet again lasted approximately thirty minutes before all sides agreed; when they arrived, they found themselves within a massive Micro-Dyson Sphere with the Governor fleet completely obliterated by the local automated defence network, which prepared to open fire on the allied fleet. At this point, a subroutine within the code of Tinuviel, the AI carried by Indigo Team, activated and sent a transmission to the unknown fleet. Within seconds, the fleet was not only powering down weapons but dispersing, clearing a way for them to return to their galaxy. A text transmission was sent to the allies, warning them not to return through the Nexus hub, and to prepare for another faction that would eventually arrive in the Milky Way. With the Governor fleet destroyed, the Nexus now activated in a two-way connection, and the exit guarded by a faction of unparalleled technological and military sophistication using Forerunner technology and styles, the allied fleet returned to alert their respective high commands to this turn of events and to prepare to continue the counter-offensive against the Governor-led New Covenant. Covenant disintegration (2570-2572) Qari Sector Campaign Operation: ECHO Operation: EQUUS Recapture of Victorious Avowal Battle of Hallowed Sanctum Great Journey (May-July 2572) Aftermath Participants Human UNSC Insurrectionist forces "Covenant" New Covenant "True" Covenant Brotherhood of Ruskt Unggoy Star Empire Sangheili Armed Forces Forerunner Labyrinth Other Flood Remarks Bibliography Category:War of Vengeance